Cyberpower Surge Protector Review

Cyberpower Surge Protector Review Warranty Failure Warning

10-28-2015 : This is a review and a big warning for people thinking about buying a Cyberpower surge protector with the supposed “lifetime warranty” for to protect your valuable gear from electrical damage. Not only did the Cyberpower surge protector model 1080 (rated for 3600 joules) fail to work as it was supposed to, destroying my motherboard and/or cpu (it would have been impossible to tell without swapping both to test) and some other parts, but they are not willing to honor their own lifetime product failure warranty against damage. The actual product can be seen here and since it is not there to review any more, I’m doing my review here to offer a warning about the unit itself and to review the supposed damage warranty.

On September 5th there was a power surge and outage here for approx. 90-120 minutes. When the power finally came back on, I tried to start up my computer, but it would not boot, and showed an ’88’ error on the motherboard. I took it to the shop, and was told it wasn’t worth it to fix, because there was no way to tell what all had suffered damage without a lot of time (labor costs) and just swapping out the parts until it worked again. So I filed a warranty claim, since the Cyberpower surge protector (package) said that it had a $50,000 lifetime gear damage warranty. My review here covers both the failure of the Cyberpower surge protector unit itself, and the lack of follow up (another failure) warranty coverage after the unit failure happened and my warranty claim was filed, processed and quickly denied. I could end my Cyberpower surge protector review here, but sadly the story goes on and so must the review.

About 2 weeks later I got a denial letter back from Cyberpower that said, “The unit was thoroughly tested and did not fail to operate and suppress surges as designed. Additionally there was no evidence of any electrical damage to the unit or indication a surge entered the device. Unfortunately the failure of your equipment was not a result of failure of the unit to operate as designed.” I have to admit that I feel like a victim blamed here, and cannot fathom any other way to see it when that is the response I have gotten. Here is the actual denial letter that I received after they claimed to have tested the failed Cyberpower surge protector and my no-longer-functioning hardware, including the text that I quoted above.

I’m not an electrician and I don’t usually do surge protector reviews or review much of anything really, but not only did the Cyberpower surge protector unit not work as it claimed to, or ‘was designed to’ as they say – it continued to supply (at least some, enough for the monitor and speakers to turn on) power after the incident. Talk about a bizarre and potentially very dangerous product failure. Luckily I was home to unplug everything. I am not sure what evidence they wanted, perhaps not having checked the blown modem, motherboard, ram, video card, or cpu that I sent them to check ? Surely those would show some evidence of an electrical failure on the part of the Cyberpower surge protector, since that is what happened after all. And I’m curious as to how they presume my equipment failed while running through the Cyberpower surge protector during a power failure/spike/outage, and yet that it was somehow not the direct result of the Cyberpower surge protector model 1080 that my gear was plugged into for protection at the time. So you can see why this review has turned mostly into a public service warning. No protection + no warranty = double failure and not worth the risk.

To sum up my review, I can only recommend that anyone shopping for a surge protector or power strip, pass up any products from Cyberpower, a company that has in my case, made false claims about their products ability to ‘save’ or protect your hardware. What about the supposed warranty against damage ? Or that they will even cover your replacement costs, and forget all the time and stress you experience after the Cyberpower surge protector fails to do it’s job and protect your electronic gear. While I doubt that all of the models of Cyberpower power surge protectors are useless like mine was, is it really worth gambling on that brand when there are so many other choices ? As my friend pointed out when I told him about all this, what if the Cyberpower surge protector had been in use at a hospital, or fire alarms when something caught on fire ?

This is the end of my Cyberpower surge protector review, at least for the time being. I’m going to ask that they check their results again, and I will update this page if I hear back from the Cyberpower surge protector claims dept.

Your claim has been fairly denied,and I do make the final decision on claims.

—-Cyberpower has decided, their surge protectors get tested, by them, and they denied me and make “the final decisions”. I wish you the best of luck if you -decide- to trust them, and more luck than that, cause I think you will need it….

11-20-2015 – Thanks so much to everyone who has hit us up with contact page messages about the Cyberpower surge protector warranty review. We are definitely back to making some music, and we were just glad to offer up a review warning to our music making friends. You should definitely contact Shelby @ Cyberpower with your claims, maybe someone can get help with their problem since they seem to have denied a LOT of warranty claims from the feedback I’ve been getting. And sorry if I haven’t replied to you yet, I will definitely email you back and give you the 2 email addresses I have to contact the warranty & sales dept. so you can give them your Cyberpower surge protector review personally. ^_^

12-15-2015 – I have yet to receive my damaged computer gear back from the Cyberpower warranty claims dept. No tracking number even. Even the way they handle warranty claims on their defective gear is just another failure.

01-05-2016 – My damaged computer gear has still not been returned from Cyberpower warranty claims, and they have not contacted me with any tracking info either. This is an epic customer service failure.

03-12-2016 – Still no returned parts or email reply. Why would Cyberpower keep my computer parts after a denied warranty claim, surely it makes sense that they would want to have a paper/official receipt record of returning them to me ? Unless they don’t want me to have the parts tested myself, to get an unbiased professional opinion on what destroyed them, and how their surge protector could have contributed to the damage they suffered.